


Needing Each Other (How It Really Starts)

by geekdawson



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Multi, OT3, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5782327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekdawson/pseuds/geekdawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started because they didn’t want to make Jessica choose. But later….later it was because they all needed each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needing Each Other (How It Really Starts)

It starts because Trish and Luke can’t make Jessica choose. But Trish is jealous and Luke doesn’t do drama. So, the third or fourth time they run into each other coming out of Jessica’s place they decide to talk about it. 

They get coffee.  

“I’m not going to stop being jealous. But I know her well enough to know she needs you sometimes. So, I’ll do this for her. Not for you, you understand?” Trish lifts her chin, eyes hard.  

Luke nods. “Keep it simple. We stay out of each others way.”

“Great,” Trish mutters. Luke tilts his head toward her. She raises her coffee and almost manages not to sound sarcastic,”Just perfect.”  

It’s not.

They do their level best to avoid each other but somehow they keep overlapping, passing each other in the hall to or from Jessica’s. The first time Jessica volunteers, with a frustrated huff, that Trish refuses to come over anymore and she’s sick of schlepping back and forth to her place Luke doesn’t say anything. He disappears for two weeks after that.

“Jess, I’m sure he’s fine,” Trish grits out, interrupting Jessica’s explanation over dinner that she’s worried he’s not coming back. “You’re not the only one who needs space sometimes. Believe me, he’ll be back.” She can’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Jessica’s head kicks back a little. She sets her fork down and squints at Trish. “Something you want to say to me?”

“Nope. We already dealt with it,” Trish breathes in carefully through her nose to keep her tone civil and digs back into her dinner.

“Dealt with it? Dealt with it how exactly?” Jessica settles back into her chair, crossing her arms, her tone sharp.

Trish pauses mid-chew. Uh oh. She glances up quickly. Jessica doesn’t do sharp very often (more a blunt instrument kind of girl) and she realizes she probably should have phrased that differently. No going back now though, so she sets her fork down too, raising her chin defiantly and looking straight into Jessica’s eyes,”Look, we just talked. Agreed to stay out of each others way. Keep things simple.”

Jessica’s jaw works. “Talked,” she repeats. “About me.”

Shit, Trish thinks rapidly. “No,” she finally answers. “About me and him.”

“What?!”

“Not like that-” Trish hurriedly corrects her, but Jessica cuts her off.

“Like what then? Like ‘hey, let’s decide for Jessica how things should go down here’? Like that?” Jessica’s voice has that dangerous rumble in it.

“No, damnit, Jess. What you do with him and me doesn’t just effect you!” Trish is pretty sure keeping her cool would be a good idea, but she finds her voice raising anyway. She breathes again. In through the nose, slowly out through the mouth. No one touches me anymore unless I want them to. “It wasn’t about deciding what you should do. It was about what he and I were deciding. That you shouldn’t have to choose. It’s fine.”

It’s not.

Jessica storms out and doesn’t answer her phone for two days. Trish stops calling. No one touches me anymore unless I want them to, she thinks to herself every time she’s tempted to try again.

* * *

“You’re back.” Luke looks up from the box he’s unloading to find Jessica Jones standing just inside the door to the bar with feet spread and hands shoved in her jacket pockets. Always the picture of defiance, he thinks.

“Yep,” he goes back to unpacking the box, methodically, slowly lifting out bottles and setting them in their proper places.

“Didn’t know if you’d be back,” she sounds….small. Luke pauses in his unpacking, still staring down into the box. Jessica Jones is never small. When he finally raises his head, she’s sitting at the bar, one knee drawn up. Defensive, his mind supplies, holding the pieces together. He looks at her, lips pressed together and the silence between them lengthens. “This was a bad idea,” she rises from the stool and strides toward the door.

“Jessica,” he says, voice very steady. She stops, hand against the door, but doesn’t turn. Only one person could ever make Jessica Jones small. “You need to go talk to her. Sort things out. She needs you. And you need her.”

“I need you both,” she says to the door. Then she leaves.

* * *

Trish, hair pulled back and sweat darkening her tank top, sighs heavily over her glass of water at the knock on her back door. She contemplates ignoring her, then caves to the part of her that never learned how to keep Jessica out and goes to open the door. “You’re back,” Trish says.

“Yep,” Jessica answers. One corner of her mouth quirks up in amusement.

“What?” Trish leans on the doorframe, letting a comfortable dull, lassitude wash over her. She’d done more than twice her usual time on the bag in an effort to dull the ache in her chest, her last best option for hiding from the things out of her control now that she’s sober.

“Deja vu, that’s all,” Jessica steps toward her, into her personal space, like a challenge. She was always a challenge. “Gonna let me in?”

Trish looks her up and down with tired, shuttered eyes. Jessica reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear that had come loose from her ponytail.

“Why should I?” Trish asks, almost idly, arms crossed over her chest. She waits for something biting about the cold or raunchy about needing a good lay, but Jessica surprises her. She hates that she can still do that.

“Because I need you and you need me,” Jessica says. And there it is, the blunt force trauma voice. With the greatest weight either of them has ever borne. Trish sighs, all the fight rushing out of her all at once. No one touches me anymore unless I want them to she thinks, and leans forward until her forehead rests on Jessica’s shoulder.

Jess wraps her arms around her, resting her cheek on the top of her head. “I’m tired of missing you,” Trish says heavily. “I’m always tired.”

“Yeah. I’m kind of a pain in the ass like that,” Jessica answers and Trish can feel her nod against the top of her head.

“You are,” Trish answers. She takes a deep breath and pulls away, jaw firm. “Which is why you should call Luke and tell him to meet us for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Huh?” Jessica’s brow furrows in puzzlement.

“You are a pain in the ass, and if I have to deal with it, so does he. Tell him to bring coffees, I’ll make eggs,” Trish takes her hand, pulling her inside and tugging her to the bedroom.

* * *

Luke fidgets a bit with the tray of coffees in his hand, takes a deep breath, and rings the bell.

The door opens and Trish actually smiles at him. He smiles back tentatively. “Coffee. Thank god.” Trish holds the door and sweeps an arm out, pointing him into the kitchen. “Make yourself at home,” she says. “Cream? Sugar?” She asks, opening the fridge.

“A bit of cream,” he says, glancing around the well appointed, massive apartment curiously.

“She’s in the shower,” Trish says, setting the cream in front of him and taking two of the coffees from the tray. They doctor their coffees in silence.

He leans against a stool at the island, perching there like he’s ready to bolt at any second and they just…kind of look at each other, then down, away, anywhere else. After a few moments of sipping coffee, Trish looks up.

“I can’t promise I’ll stop being jealous,” She finally says.

“I know,” he answers.

“But you can’t punish her for that.”

“Wasn’t,” he shakes his head, takes another sip of coffee, stares down at his hands wrapped around the coffee cup. “She needs you, Trish. I don’t want to be in the way of that. I thought if I gave it some time she’d let it go.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t punishment. Probably just better if we all move on. None of us need this kind of drama in our lives.”

The silence lengthens and he feels a prickling at the back of his neck. When he raises his eyes, he finds Trish observing him, hands flat against the counter top, with such an intense look on her face he feels the need to hunch his shoulders.

“Well, this doesn’t feel awkward at all,” Jessica’s voice breaks the moment as she comes rambling in, hair still damp and barefoot. She swipes one of the coffees Trish had doctored leans in and kisses Trish on the cheek, then hesitates, suddenly unsure, eyes darting to Luke. Jessica Jones uncertain is a horrific sight, Luke thinks. 

“I should go,” Luke straightens from his perch.

“Luke, sit down,” Trish’s voice snaps with authority, Luke goes stock still. “Oh for god’s sake,” she picks up her coffee, takes a breath and continues in a voice like stretched metal wire,”Look I know it’s going to be a little awkward for a while, but I am TIRED and I can’t keep doing this alone.” They both just sort of gape at her as she goes on,”I get pissy, Luke disappears, Jessica disappears, we circle around each other like wary dogs I. Am. Tired.” She bites off the last three words. “Now can we please, sit down, share a meal, and maybe figure out a way to help each other bear the weight of these things,” her voice shakes, suddenly, shockingly, like the twang of frayed cable breaking. She almost stops, but she can’t, she can’t, she can’t,”… all these things that happened and are happening… and needing each other.”

The silence is deafening. She breathes. No one touches me anymore unless I want them to. “She needs you too, Luke. I know you don’t know that yet. But you will,” Trish says softly. “And if she needs you, then so do I.” She looks up as he slowly, gently walks over to her. She tenses. No one touches me anymore unless I want them to. She readies herself to throw him across the room, he may be unbreakable but he’s not immoveable.

He reaches past her, careful not to touch her, opens the fridge door and pulls out the eggs. “I’ll grate the cheese,” he says softly as he hands them to her.

He does. Jessica stays out of the way and Trish and Luke cook for her and it all started because they didn’t want to make Jessica choose. But later….later it was because they all needed each other.

* * *

It’s three months of shared meals, learning to balance conversation between the three of them (breakfast at Trish’s place, dinner at the food trucks near the bar, sometimes lunches grabbed near the radio station with Trish) and Jessica alternates on no particular schedule if she stays with one of them or at her own place before things change again between them all.

Luke is just closing up when his phone buzzes. He expects it to be a text from Jessica (it’s about that hour) and raises an eyebrow surprise. “She needs you,” it reads. “Come over. -Trish“

“On my way,” he texts back and changes direction to head to his motorcycle instead of his apartment.

He nods to the doorman on the way into Trish’s building, he’s regular enough here they know him and the doorman smiles and nods back. Trish is already at the door, a bag slung over her shoulder and a deadly still expression on her face. “She’s on the balcony,” she says, sweeping past him, back rigid, careful not to touch him. She never touches him. He never touches her. It’s somehow become a rule between them.

“Trish,” he calls after her and she stops, shifts, doesn’t quite turn toward him, like she can’t quite bear to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

She jerks her head once, the muscles in her jaw clenched, eyes still at some point just over his left shoulder then turns and continues on her way to the elevator.

He doesn’t intend to stay at Trish’s that night, but he drinks with Jessica, mostly in silence. It’s the silence she needs. It’s his distance, his stillness. His lack of need to take care of her. The one thing Trish can never give her….Trish will always need to take care of her. So they drink, and they don’t talk, and somewhere along the way there are several empty bottles and they are both sprawled on the patio furniture haphazardly. They don’t go inside.

She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder exactly where they are on Trish’s balcony with it’s stellar view. Just before the sunrise he hears the back door open. Trish appears in his peripheral vision, and before he can register anything she’s settling a blanket over the two of them, her face all business, but less still somehow, less taut. She even looks into his eyes for a moment as she tucks a corner of the blanket around Jessica. He considers that progress.

But then it happens. As she turns to go head back inside, he feels a strong, warm hand on his shoulder and he can’t help but lift his own head in surprise. She looks him right in the eye, squeezes his shoulder, warm and strong, and then she’s gone. As he closes his eyes, drifting off on the early morning rays of sunlight, he thinks that maybe….maybe things will be ok after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the barest sliver of a hint of some of the beginning of things with Jessica, Trish, and Luke trying to figure it all out between them (spoiler for fan fiction I haven’t written yet: they do eventually figure it all out). If you like this thing and want more lemme know so I can decide what to write next.
> 
> You can find me on the tumblr dot com as geekdawson. Come yell with me about these three idiots.


End file.
